Business

Tracking: Your Key to a Successful Year

If you’ve heard me speak, then you’ve heard me talk about TRACKING – tracking your business, your income, your leads, everything. My team a bit obsessive/compulsive about tracking, but as a result, we know where our business comes from, where we get the most and best quality leads, and where to spend our advertising and marketing dollars the most efficiently. In other words, we have our finger on the pulse of our business and know how to get the most bang for our buck.

If you haven’t been tracking your business effectively, it’s never to late to start. First, you need to look back and see where your closings have come from and what your main type of client is. Do your homework now before you start moving forward.

HOMEWORK: Go back over your business for the last 3 to 5 years. Create a spreadsheet similar to the one below (or download the one below – no need to recreate the wheel!) that shows where all your closed business came from — categorize the types of clients and the source of business. Do this for every closed transaction you’ve had over the last 3 to 5 years. When you can see where every closed sale originated, you can start to see patterns in your most effective lead sources — where to spend more time and money and where to cut the fat. When you can see the types of clients you’ve worked with most over the previous years, you can start to devise more effective marketing campaigns and more focused content for your website, based on the type of client that has become your niche, and if there’s a niche you want to work toward (i.e., first-time homebuyers or luxury sales), you can see if you’ve been successful and where you may need to rap up your efforts. All of the data is right there waiting for you to mine it from your records of past sales.

Click here or on the image above to access a downloadable version of this spreadsheet.

Once you’ve done your homework, you’re ready to look ahead and start tracking every lead — no longer just every closing. Every single lead that comes in and is a potential client and potential closing.

MOVING FORWARD: Track every lead that comes in, moving forward. Not just every closing but every lead. Every phone call, email, Zillow lead, referral. Use a spreadsheet similar to this one (or again, download the one below) for a quick look at where every lead comes from and an easy way to calculate your conversion rate. Again, when you can see where your business is coming from and where you’re spending your money and time, you can assess if you efforts are paying off and where you maybe need to realign your time and spending to make more sense and ultimately make more bottom-line profit.

Click here or on the image above to access a downloadable version of this spreadsheet.